Broccoli Soup

With all this snow, the only thing that sounds good to eat is warm food. I don't mind, like I said before, I just throw ingredients in a pot and let it boil. 

But there are days when I want to show off my cooking skills. Then I get into following recipes.  It happened some days ago, besides, I've always been wanting to make broccoli soup, but for some reason never did. And since it was full speed snowing and no where to go, I thought it was the perfect day to take my time and follow this recipe.

The flavor of this soup was really good, but it got a little thick, especially after it cooled off. Because, since I left my measuring spoons at Virginia, I got some from a friend of mine, but I'm not used to them. 

So what I thought was a 1Tbsp, actually was a 4Tbsp!  

Fortunately kids were hungry and ate most of it.

Here is the recipe. I can't wait to cook it again, then I will make sure I use my 1Tbsp measure.

Broccoli Soup

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 cups chicken broth
8 cups broccoli florets
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk

1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in medium sized stock pot, and saute onion and celery until tender. Add broccoli and broth, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Pour the soup into a blender, puree in batches until smooth and pour into a clean pot. You can also use a stick blender and puree the soup right in the cooking pot.
3. In small saucepan, over medium-heat melt 3 tablespoons butter, stir in flour and add milk. Stir until thick and bubbly, and add to soup. Season with pepper and serve.

From the Antartic

Hola! It's soo cold in Nebraska! I made some tasty hamburger soup to keep kids and me warm. Cooking in the winter is the easiest, since my kids love soups, I just threw stuff in a pot and let it boil!

I decided to add some chile serrano in the soup. To make the kids dance el Jarabe Tapatio, but they ended up doing gangnam style!

What child is this - Mercy Me

Lets make it feel like Christmas!

Present Shoping

It's getting to really look like Christmas!  Getting busy here. Lets not stress about the presents. It's all about celebrating the present already given to us: Jesus.

 Happy Friday!

Changing THIS BLOG Title

I have the blogging bug! But now I live in Nebraska, how could I be a friend in Virginia, if I'm in Nebraska?  I was thinking I start a new blog and I called it Friends Nebraska, but if I ever move again, I will have to start a new blog? 

Throughout  my life I have found myself in places, situations and topics as if  I'm part of them, but no, not really. I'm neither from here or from there, I'm neither for this or for that. Or "Ni de aqui ni de alla", as we Mexicans say in this situations.

From now on my blog will be called: Ni de Aqui, ni de Alla.

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Popcorn

Trying to not eat margarine and processed popcorn savors. I will try this recipe.  Sounds spicy and tasty!

Making bread

Currently looking for recipes to make bread. I don't have a bread machine, so I think this tutorial will be enough.  

Mariposa

It's that time of the year! I have beautiful butterflies flying around my Texas size lantana.








There was another one, but the pictures for that one did come up very good. :( I'll try again later.

Yellow Pants

Everything in my garden is colorful! Including the bugs.



The pollen made the bee's legs yellow. So cute!



Hey, Mr. Bee! Where did you get those yellow pants?
I got not answer, it won't talk when working.

A Bailar!!

July First

At my garden after church.




This weekend was really hot in my area. I took the kids to Water Country, the best thing to do on a hot weekend. We could of have gone to the beach, but I'm pretty sure it was packed. It gets so crowded, that it's hard to walk!

We also got some crazy thunderstorms! The power went off for a minute, but thank God, it came back soon. It's not good to be without air conditioning on a 100+ degree temperature.

I'm also grateful that there was no damage to my home! I got some friends that had to spend their weekend cutting big logs from the trees that fell on their yards. One of my friends posted a picture of a tree that almost fell on their home! Thank God that tree was not taller, it would of done some big damage!

(Life got me busy, this is my post from the weekend of July 1rst.) But you still love me, right? =)

Flowers and Fury

When taking pictures of flowers I caught a picture of my dog, Oreo, getting upset with some passing byers. She is very protective. And doesn't care what size the person or dog is!

Sometimes I call her Night Fury, I think she looks a lot like Toothless, the dark dragon from the movie How to train your Dragon. 

Black Eyed Susan

I didn't plant these Black Eyed Susans! They came out by themselves at my back yard.

 Last week when I cut my grass. I had to go around them, feel bad to cut them.

But I made a deal with kids. I do what ever I want in the front yard and they keep the back yard for themselves. They haven't say anything, yet. But if for some reason a ball brakes them, I can't say anything!! It's their back yard! LOL.

Rainy Day

I love birds! And I'm against keeping them in cages!

So, what do I do to get close to them? I feed them.  I have a feeder beside my kitchen window. And that's how I get close to them.

I've seen pictures of people feeding birds from their hands. That's something that I soo want to happen to me. But all the times we (my daughter also dreams of feeding birds from her hand) sit out there with bird food in our hands, the birds won't come!

To take pictures of them, I turn off all the lights and get as close as I can to the window. I also took a couple of slats out of my blinds.


Robins are fun to watch! They stand still for little bit, and then they take off and start tugging out earth
worms.

























Since I'm a gardener, I know the importance of having worms in the soil.  Sometimes I get mad with the robins for eating my worms. I made a deal with this one. He posed for my blog picture, and I let him have some of my worms.  :)




Pictures from a rainy day back in March.

I have posted many other pictures at my Facebook page. If you have an account, click here for 2011, and here for 2012.

Visa

This is how my garden looks like these days.
 

Lately is been the lilies time to show off. But I think this is one of the last lilies, that I was expecting to bloom. When I got it, the label for it said that it's name was Visa.

 

There is, or was, :(  a red day lily that usually blooms in the middle of summer. But I don't know if I'll get to see it this year. The lily I'm talking about is soo beautiful, and because I liked soo much, I think that I over separated and it might just died.

This happens a lot when I get greedy.

 Over separating plants kills them!!

Bumblebee

Bumblebees are cute and fun to watch them fly from flower to flower.

They may look scary, but they wont do anything. I water the plants, pick out weeds and deadhead  flowers right beside them and never have they stung me.
 

 They are not any ordinary bug, they even got their own song!

 

June

I have a big show going on at my garden. The black-eyed sussan is blooming like crazy. I think it is competing with the lilies!

Hi!!

Being a single mother, can get very exciting. So exciting that there is no time to write on a blog. But since the public school, in Virginia, went on Summer vacation, my schedule got a little more flexible. Now I have some extra time to do nothing! Getting bored, I think I will go back to the blog and post something.

Carolina Wren??

It's time for soccer. I have gone to a couple of practices and had to stay standing up, except when my friend's Bebote (husband) was kind to let me sit in his chair.

I remembered that I bought picnic chairs, last season, to sit at my kids games and practices. But didn't see them anywhere in the house or my car. My friend has green chairs that look a little like mine. It cross my mind that maybe I let them borrow them and didn't get them back. That's just crazy, they wouldn't do that!

So I decided to check the last possible spot, the shed.

I got there and started digging in the pile of stuff, throwing stuff everywhere. It was a good time to organize that shed a little. And right when I was about to move some long tools that were leaning against a shelf I got there, I saw my pot where I put my gloves with a pile of sticks. It's a nest! I had to put the brakes to the throwing and moving stuff. I didn't want to move anything else that may be holding the pot in that position.

Later on I went back to check it out and the bird was there. She is soo cute! And just ducks when I get close to her nest. She blends or camouflages really good. All I see is her blinking eyes!For the little that I was able to see, I would say it's a Carolina Wren. They say that Carolina Wrens nest in cavities.

I found the chairs, I'm not missing anything else, and it would be rude to disturb a nest. Oh well, I guess I will have to wait to clean that shed some other day.

When I Move Plants

Today was a rainy day. If I had plans for the weekend I would be a little bummed. Not this time, I was glad when I saw the weather forecast, raining on saturday. I started to move plants friday, but I get tired easily and had to slow down. And I made plans to wake up early, and didn't happened. I still used as much time as I could before the rain.

Moving plants the day before or on raining days, is the best time to do it. I believe that there is something in the water from the clouds, and not being sunny, that helps the plants not get in shock.

Sometimes, if I have the energy, I get a rain coat and move plants when it's raining! I know! I had some teenager neighbors that looked at me sideways. They probably called me the cuckoo plant lady! I don't blame them! It's weird to see someone gardening in the rain.

Me on friday, with a foxglove in my hands, they look like big lettuces.

I try to keep my hands clean. I started with gloves, but they get on the way! And in the middle of gardening I took them off.

Crabapple Tree

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My crabapple tree is having its spring show! I took some pictures, only about 100, not to many :).

I uploaded them on Facebook. And if I get a chance I'll share some in here later.

A picture of me, I can stay the whole day looking at it!

For Now

It's that time again! Daffodils blooming!

I have a big show of these yellow flowers all over my garden. But I will wait to show the pictures. Because by the time I decide which picture is the best to upload, I already took another picture that I think will look better.






Almost all the buds are open, so I think these are the best pictures of daffodil flower buds.

Crocuses

Here is how my crocuses looked like in other years. It was my first time planting bulbs. I had seen many pictures of groups of bulbs looking better than when they were planted separate. And I didn't have experience with flowers from this zone.



Also, not all the bulbs are planted the same dept. Tulips, daffodils, and irises are planted deeper than crocuses. That's why I didn't think about overcrowding issues. And neither did I think that bulbs reproduce!



I loved how they came out the next year. And friends that saw my garden liked to see the groups of blooming bulbs.



It was the time when the kids were younger, school was easy to do, and they didn't want to go here and there. It was perfectly fine to just play in the backyard. I had all that time to get really creative in the garden. I even put red mulch!

I think that white is not a very common color for crocuses, but in other years I even had white crocuses!


Now, fast forward to this year. I had to go searching for crocuses! And I almost didn't find any!

2012
I'm writhing about them, to say that I know crocuses and that I have planted them. But this year I didn't get too many crocuses. And I will show you pictures from 2009. It might sound like living in the past. I think I'll get away with it, because you like me?

2012

Crocuses are one of the first flowers to bloom in my garden. They bloom at the same time or a little after the Lenten Rose. In this picture from 2009, there are still leaves from the fall of the year before.
It's nice to see them in the middle of the grey and brown winter. It's like hope of life among dead. I miss my crocuses!



I think I learned my lesson, but I will make a little list of what NOT TO DO when planting crocuses.

1. DO NOT plant them too close with other bulbs. I think the other bulbs suck all the nutrients and leave nothing for the crocuses.
This picture, from 2009, shows all the bulbs I put in one hole. I put tulips, irises and daffodils, To many of them!

2. IF I WANT beautiful little flowers in the beginning of the blooming season, I should plant some bulbs in the fall.


3. I SHOULD fertilized them in the fall. That way they would have enough nutrients for the many other bulbs I put in the hole. ( If I happen to ignore #1. I better not!!)



These two pictures are from the same spot.

2009

2012, Only one crocus bloomed!

All the pictures are from 2009, except the ones that have 2012 on the top.

1/4 to go!!

Hola everyone.

Here is a picture of my cross stitching job. The last time I gave you an update on it, was last year in November. Then we went to Nebraska, at there I had a lot of time to just stitch. But then I got back home. Here I only stitch while waiting for my doctor's appointments, and while I wait when the kids do their extracurricular activities. I still think that I have done some progress. I'm almost done, about 1/4 to go!
I was shooting to have it finished by Easter, but it's only a month left. Not sure about that.

And I tried! Once a week my daughter goes to play with other homeschoolers, for two hours! I took the thing to the place, but didn't get to it. I end up chit chatting with the ladies instead. Oh well, at least I had a good time with my friends!

If you wonder how it will look when it gets finished, there is a picture of it here.

Lenten Rose

The Helleborus Orientalis or Lenten Rose it's the first plant to bloom in my garden. It blooms in the winter! I had always wanted to have one of them. But I didn't know how to take care of them and didn't know which one to get. There are many different colors of them!Until one day my friend Ali and I exchanged plants. She came to my garden and picked the plants she wanted. Then I got to go to her garden! I was surprised to see this plant. And was a little shy to ask for it, but I was there to get whatever plant I wanted, so I asked for it and she gave it to me.Since she has been gardening the Lente Rose for a long time, she gave me some advised of how to take care of it. According to her, this plant does good in the shade and doesn't like it to be moved. It will take a long time to recover. I decided to plant it in a corner where it gets plenty of shade. It has been there since, and I don't think there is a better for it. Besides, that corner used to be boring. But now it has a couple of colorful plants that makes it attractive, including one that blooms in the winter.She gave it to me at the end of spring. The plant was done blooming for the year. I had to wait to the next spring to see what color it was. I'm really happy with the color, or colors, because some of the flowers are white and others are pink. The only thing I'm not so happy about the Lenten Rose is that, the beautiful flowers don't turn up they turn to the ground!
It is good to cut the old branches at the end of summer or fall. But I didn't do that last year. Here are the before and after pictures.

Before, messy with last year's old branches.



And the after picture. All cleaned up, with only this year branches. It looks so much better!